Let us imagine that it is not legal in the United States to
sell any or all of one's organs. By
making this a part of the market, we can assume that certain things will be
regulated--there will be a market price for kidneys, for example. One glaring problem with this, to me, is that
we will have now created a demand for
human organs.
It seems logical to assume that incentivizing the giving of
organs would increase the supply of those organs. This is dangerous to assume. Sandel cites an example in another book (What Money Can't Buy, which I read in
another class), of a study of blood donation in the UK and the United
States. In the UK, there is no monetary
incentive to donate blood, but in the United State, one can sell his/her blood (today one can still sell
plasma, at least). What the study found
was that, when offered monetary incentives, fewer
people gave blood. This seems odd,
but it changed the nature of blood donation from something one does out of
goodwill into something that one must be paid for. Sandel also cites a study done in a village
in Switzerland, where the citizens were asked if they would be willing to let
the government store nuclear waste in their village. Most agreed.
They were then asked if they would be willing if the government gave
them all monetary compensation (I think it was around $8,000 a person). Almost everyone now disagreed with this. It felt, to them, like a bribe. The point here is that incentivizing the
giving of organs very likely will not increase
the supply of organs for transplant (or for eccentric art collectors). And too strong of a demand could be
problematic.
If demand for organs is high enough, it can result in
exploitative and coercive restrictions on the liberty of citizens. It will change the motivation behind medical
care, if there is a financial gain made whenever a patient loses an organ. This would be dangerous if doctors could
profit in the sale. If they could not,
and the organ is entirely the patient's property, doctors would have to rid
themselves of the long-standing precept of medical ethics to do no harm. Similarly, people may be coerced by the
necessity of their economic situations to harm their bodies through organ
sales. Criminals may even intimidate victims
into selling their organs, or steal them.
This point could perhaps be made clearer by the example of
legal prostitution--if there is a demand for prostitutes, we must become very
concerned about how they are recruited. If it were made a legal commodity, the price of
sex may decrease, further diminishing the supply of "happy prostitutes." How this supply would be filled could
restrict the freedom of vulnerable women.
The point here is that, while this argument does not suggest
that we don't own our bodies, condoning this behavior puts the freedom of
others at serious risk. What do you guys
think? Can you think of an argument that
would suggest we don't own our bodies?
While I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusions and your attempt to argue against libertarian logic, I would point out that your argument is based more on utilitarian logic than libertarian logic. Proponents of libertarian logic would argue that the future consequences are not relevant to the fact that they own their bodies, and thus have the choice to make bad decisions. Even if these decisions negatively affect the general good, they still have the right to choose.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that it would be more important to libertarians to defend freedom in the first place, but I also think it's important to note not that libertarians would be against organ sales, but that their support of it could actually prove really problematic for them. Defending freedom above all else can result in even more restricted freedom, and that's something that has always made me question the logic of libertarianism.
ReplyDelete